High Treason

by Sean McFate

  “Hammersmith Hall,” murmured Winters with a proud grin. It was the Chevalier’s estate on Long Island’s Gold Coast, managed under layers of shell companies, and where he first met the Chevalier. No one would think to look for him there. Even better, it was defendable. The 1904 mansion sat on a private peninsula, surrounded by water and hundreds of acres of patrolled land with an Israeli-style border fence. Nothing got in or out without the guards’ knowledge. It was an ideal location to regroup and prepare for an attack he knew would be coming.

  “Overkill is underrated,” he said, picking up the phone. Within ten minutes, all his key assets were mobilizing for Hammersmith Hall, and most would arrive before he did. He instructed the estate to receive his visitors, but neglected to say they would be extremely armed and dangerous. Once his Apollo teams locked down the estate, they would prepare for the next phase: attack. Later, Winters would solicit the Chevalier’s forgiveness, after his victory. In fact, that meeting could be the perfect opportunity to capture the Chevalier, Winters thought with a grin.

  “Pilots, divert to Westchester, New York, and lay on a chopper. A fast one.”

  “Yes sir,” said the voice over the intercom.

  Just one more call to make, the most important one of all, he thought as the plane banked slightly right. After he was finished, he placed the phone back in its holder and stared at the dark clouds below. Not only will I kill Locke, I will destroy all my enemies in a single blow.

  “The die is cast,” he declared, reminded of Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon to invade Rome.

  Chapter 54

  After driving an hour on country roads, we pulled into a community airport in The Middle of Nowhere, Virginia. The tarmac’s residents were single-engine planes, two crop dusters, and one Stearman biplane. At the end was an uncharacteristically large hangar, our destination. The massive doors shut behind the van as we coasted to a stop.

  “We’re here,” said Tye, stepping out. We were not alone. The place was teeming with people and vehicles of all types. Crammed in the hanger was a Bombardier corporate jet and four turboprop, twin-engine cargo planes, like the aircraft Lava used over Manhattan. A work crew was heaving a space-age hunk of machinery up the tailgate of the nearest one.

  “Is that a drone?” asked Jen as we passed. It looked like an armed rotary-wing drone with its boom and blades folded up. Attached was a cargo chute.

  “Yes,” I said, thinking that would have been handy in Manhattan. Mechanics were sliding air-to-air missiles on the rails of two fixed-wing jet drones, presumably our escorts. They were twenty feet of black sleekness, and looked like half-size fighter jets rather than the wide-wing variants used by the U.S. government.

  “What are those?” asked Jen, amazed. She was pointing to the two fighter jet drones.

  “Apollo proprietary tech,” said one of the mechanics, overhearing her. “We call them Hunters because they can search and destroy targets autonomously. No humans in the kill loop.”

  “But isn’t that dangerous?” she asked, as I tried to pull her along. We had a lot to do. The mechanic looked confused, as if saying, All war is dangerous.

  “She’s new here,” I told him as we left.

  “Hey, Locke, grab gear. You’ll know it when you see it,” shouted Tye over the din as he walked away. Parked against the wall was a box van of HALO equipment and oxygen bottles. Another was loaded with body armor and weapons. A third was filled with ammunition and demo. An assembly line of technicians equipped male and female warriors. Apollo was getting ready for battle; except I had never seen a full-court press before.

  “What is this place?” asked Jen as we ducked under the wing of the corporate jet. People shuffled around us, moving with a purpose, but there was a jitteriness in the air. Several were wheeling matte-black dirt bikes onto one cargo plane. Jen cocked her head in surprise, noticing they had no license plates, lights of any kind, or mufflers. They were unique.

  “Apollo Outcomes, my old company,” I said. Or what’s left of it, I thought. Apollo’s civil war had taken a toll, and the hangar had a Rebel-Alliance-on-planet-Hoth vibe.

  “What are we doing here?” whispered Jen, troubled.

  “It’s not your fight, Jen. You don’t need to be here,” I said, hoping she would say it was her fight, too. But she said nothing. “Let’s find Lava, my old commander. We both have questions and he has answers.”

  Two people passed us wearing head-to-toe battle armor that made them look like black cyborgs, and with futuristic assault rifles slung over their shoulders. Jen stood still, gaping.

  “What is that?” she asked, pointing to their weapons.

  “Precision-guided firearms. One shot, one kill, guaranteed by AI. Shoots around corners, from choppers, and through Kevlar like margarine, even when sprinting. Standard issue at Apollo.”

  “Holy crap,” she murmured.

  “Our military could have the same equipment if the government’s procurement system wasn’t so FUBAR.”

  “I’m starting to understand what you were saying about Apollo. I just didn’t . . . believe it,” she said.

  “Few do. I didn’t either, until I was recruited. They don’t hire; they only recruit,” I said, scanning the hangar for Lava, but no luck. Along the back wall were four thirty-foot satellite trucks, like the kind TV networks use, except these were different: NSA-level command and control nodes with cyber warriors and drone pilots for mobile operations. In the past, one truck would support a high-intensity mission. I had never seen four deployed simultaneously. In fact, I had never seen four at all.

  It looks like a final stand, I thought.

  “Tom, who’s that?” asked Jen. In a corner, a burly tall man surrounded by people waved at us.

  “That’s Lava,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  We clasped forearms and he pounded my back in greeting. “Nice to see you back, Tom. We need your gun on this one. It’s big. It’s everything.”

  “Lava, about using me to get Winters . . .” I said with anger, but he cut me off.

  “And who is this?” he asked warmly, extending a hand to Jen.

  “Um,” Jen looked at me, wondering if she should give her real name.

  “You must be Ms. Jennifer P. Lin, former FBI agent,” said Lava. “You know the Bureau has issued an arrest warrant for you.” Jen’s face went white. “Makes no difference to us, of course. We’re outside the law.”

  “Jen’s one of the good guys . . . er, gals,” I said.

  “So I’ve heard,” said Lava with genuine admiration. “Good work last night, taking down one of Wagner’s safe houses, and solo no less. I’m impressed.” Her mouth dropped. “Even Tye was impressed, and that’s rare,” Lava chuckled. “I don’t know what you did this morning, but he called you a thermonuclear tigress.” Lava gave me a knowing smile.

  Jen’s expression transformed from astonishment to wrath, and her fists balled up.

  “More later. But first . . .” Lava clambered onto the top of a truck so all could see him. “Gather around, everyone! Gather around!” People dropped what they were doing and assembled in front of Lava. They numbered about seventy in all, the last of Apollo Outcomes. It was once six hundred.

  “It’s been a long campaign. We’ve all lost friends, but the time has come to strike back and end this war in a single, decisive attack. Our client leaked Winters’s identity to the media, hoping it would force him to make a mistake we can exploit. It did.”

  The group murmured in speculation, and Lava continued.

  “We have actionable intelligence on where and when Winters and his entire team will be in three hours. We must hit them now, while they are regrouping and not when they have regrouped. Surprise is on our side, making this our one, best, and last chance to eliminate the threat. If we fail, Winters and his foreign enemy client may destroy three American cities and dictate terms to the White House. We can never allow that to happen.”

  Murmurs of alarm in a variety of languages escalated. Lava then gave
the mission brief, making an impromptu “sand table” on the hangar floor using airplane chocks as buildings, rope for terrain features, and coffee cups as units, both friendly and enemy. He walked around with a broomstick, pointing at units as he explained the plan.

  “This is crazy!” whispered Jen in my ear as the plan became evident.

  “We specialize in crazy,” I replied with no irony. She grabbed my hand, perhaps unconsciously, but her expression remained impassive for the rest of the brief. At the end, the team let out a battle cry, and everyone hurried back to their tasks. Wheels up in three-zero mikes.

  “We need to talk,” said Jen in her business voice. I followed her into a tool cage toward the back of the maintenance annex.

  “Who are you fighting?” she asked.

  “Wagner Group mercenaries and Apollo renegades,” I answered, and explained Winters. She absorbed it.

  “Let me get this straight,” she said. “Your old boss, Winters, finds a foreign client. In exchange for power, money, whatever, he recovers three nuclear bombs that he previously stole from Pakistan—”

  “I tried to stop him in Iraq and Syria,” I added.

  “—then he goes into business with the Wagner Group, Russian mercenaries—”

  “They wiped out my team in Ukraine. Winters sold me out,” I interrupted again, bitter.

  Jen ignored me. “—and Wagner hires the Shulaya mafia to smuggle nukes into New Jersey. At the same time, Winters returns to Apollo and creates a schism within the company, hijacking half of it. They bury the three nukes in American cities, and give the trigger to a foreign, unknown client. Is that correct?”

  I nodded.

  “You have some fucked-up colleagues,” she opined.

  I nodded again. “No longer colleagues, and about to become extinct. Winters’s whole team is massing as we speak, and we can take them out in one assault. It’s gutsy, but Lava is right. It’s our one and only chance.”

  “And who is your client?” Jen asked, ever the investigator. I honestly did not know, and she shook her head in disapproval.

  “I trust Lava,” I blurted, surprising myself. But my gut knew him to be true.

  Jen glared at me. “Are you really dumb enough to do this, Tom?”

  I was taken aback. “Yes. Absolutely. Why do you think I came out of hiding from halfway around the world? If we don’t stop this here and now, we might as well auction off the Oval Office to any foreign power willing to pay third parties.”

  Jen crossed her arms and shot me a look of enraged disappointment, as I stood resolute.

  “Hey!” It was Tye’s voice, as he poked his head into the tool cage. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. We got fifteen minutes before wheels up. You need to suit up, Locke.” Then he noticed our body language. “Lovers’ quarrel?”

  Jen spun around and scowled at him. I had never seen Tye slink away so fast. I grabbed her hands and we hugged, then kissed. I could taste her salty tears. Curiously, I never thought about death before an operation, no matter how risky. Death is what happens to other people, I irrationally believed.

  “You don’t need to do this. It’s not your fight,” I said again.

  “Yes, it is. You came out of hiding and I left the FBI for the same reason. We’ve risked everything for this opportunity.” We kissed again.

  “Let’s go, yous!” bellowed Tye’s voice from the hangar. A minute later, we emerged. The hangar was frantic, and the main doors were open. Vehicles were departing and ground crews were towing out the aircraft. The night air refreshed the hangar.

  “Locke, you’re on me again. We’re on bird alpha,” said Tye, pointing to one of the cargo aircraft. “You know the drill.”

  “Roger,” I said, looking at the tech assembly line by the three box vans. They were waving to me to hurry up.

  Then Tye turned to Jen. “Are you in the fight?”

  Jen paused and looked at me then the aircraft. One of the turboprops spun to life, followed by others. She nodded.

  “Is that a yes?” asked Tye with care.

  “Yes, yes. Count me in. I speak Russian. It might come in handy.”

  “I know it will,” said Tye. “Everyone is glad you’re on the team.” He pointed to the corporate jet being towed onto the tarmac. “You’re riding in that. When it lands, you will be on the ground team. Jinx will brief you inflight. Locke can help with your equipment.” He slapped me on the shoulder twice, put on his black helmet, and jogged over to our cargo plane.

  Jen and I suited up at the vans, and I taught her how to operate the tactical cuff with its AI. She opted to keep her Saiga automatic shotgun and grabbed four more grenades, “for old times’ sake,” she said nervously.

  “Hey Locke, hurry your ass up!” I heard Tye yell from the aircraft. The hunter drones taxied to the airstrip and screeched into the sky. One of the cargo planes started rolling. It was time.

  “Come back to me,” I said.

  “Kick ass, my darling,” she whispered in my ear, then slapped my butt and sauntered to the Bombardier jet, her long hair billowing in the prop blast.

  I smiled, locking the image of her in my memory, then double-timed to the lead cargo plane. Minutes later, we were all airborne and flying north.

  Chapter 55

  The business helicopter touched down on the manicured lawn after dark, the rotor wash blowing leaves and dirt into the empty marble swimming pool. The backdrop was a faux Normandy castle, complete with ivy-covered turrets and hypergothic architecture, like Neuschwanstein’s baby cousin.

  Staff members rushed out to greet the chopper; some wore butler black tie while others looked like SWAT. Winters lumbered out of the aircraft, his overcoat flapping in the down wash. As soon as the door closed, the engines whined as the pilots pulled pitch, sending the Sikorski S-76 up in a graceful swoop toward Long Island Sound.

  “Where are the commanders?” yelped Winters to no one in particular. “I want a sitrep ASAP!”

  A man dressed in black body armor with a bullpup assault rifle nodded to the others, who returned to the mansion.

  “Who are you?” demanded Winters.

  “I’ve been assigned as your aide-de-camp for this phase of the operation, sir,” said the commando, clearly not a job he volunteered for. “The commanders are assembling in the library, waiting for you, sir.”

  Winters’s chin bobbed, a faint nod of approval.

  Hammersmith House sat on its own peninsula, which jutted out into the sound. It was built during the Gilded Age by a robber baron of industry, its stones meant to rival the nobility of Blenheim Palace in England. Exquisite gardens sloped downward from the grand portico to the shoreline and offered superlative views of Connecticut on the horizon. The surrounding grounds were mostly wooded, lending a pastoral beauty at odds with the asphalt of Manhattan, thirty miles away. However, Winters took no notice of it.

  “What are our troop levels?” asked Winters as he walked across the lawn to the mansion. He moved with vigor, despite his infirmity. The scent of battle animated him, giving him inexplicable strength. Whatever monster he had mutated into, he began as a soldier at West Point, and he was a good one, too.

  “About ninety percent assembled, sir. We expect stragglers over the next twenty-four hours.”

  Winters shook his head and the aide felt the scorn. “Show me the rest of the defenses,” he said as he marched forward.

  Heavily armed men dressed in black scurried about, turning the Gold Coast mansion into an Afghanistan firebase. The estate’s staff scampered about, mortified. The decorative eighteenth-century porcelain collections were a particular worry, and a footman sprawled his body across a display case as two paramilitaries eyed the hand-painted figurines with curiosity.

  Winters and the aide reached the expansive stone patio facing the sound. It was built for outdoor parties of four hundred during the Gatsby era, but now it entertained missile launchers and auto-turrets, covering every conceivable avenue of approach.

  Winters survey
ed the battleground: a one-thousand-foot lawn and garden from the mansion to the sea. Men were laying antipersonnel mines, and two Boston Whaler speedboats were pressed into service patrolling the banks with machine guns and automatic grenade launchers. Then he looked skyward.

  “Where’s the air defenses? I ordered this kitsch shrine transformed into a fortress. Nothing in or out. And that means the goddamn heavens too!” he shouted, jabbing his cane at the stars.

  The aide gestured to the roof. Winters leaned back and squinted into the moonless sky. “Give me those,” he said, removing the aide’s night vision. Donning it, he could see men patrolling the imitation battlements. Some were snipers while others had surface-to-air missiles on their shoulders. “Where is our radar? What kind of early warning do we have?”

  “We have tapped all ground radar from local airports,” said the aide. “It’s not Patriot missile quality, but it should work.”

  “Not good enough,” Winters grumped. “Drones. Show me.”

  “Follow me, sir,” replied the aide.

  They entered the mansion, a temple of antiques and art. They passed a squad of Russian-speaking mercenaries, then Spanish speakers. Then a group of English speakers unpacking crates of Claymore mines and blasting caps. The only things they all had in common were heavy weapons and a penchant for black.

  It’s like the Tower of Babel in here, thought Winters. There were two command languages, Russian and English, increasing the chances of fratricide. To date, the Wagner Group and Apollo mercenaries had never fought together, only against each other.

  Winters hobbled across the harlequin tile of the grand foyer, commandos stepping out of his way in respect. He walked like MacArthur returning to the Philippines. The aide gestured toward the front door, a monstrosity of wood and iron. Beyond it, on the other great lawn, were rows of armed rotary and fixed-wing drones.

  “The fixed wings are capable of vertical takeoff. Another six are patrolling the skies right now. What you see is the airborne quick reaction force that can deploy within twenty seconds. Main armaments include 7.62 miniguns, Hellfires, and Stingers,” said the aide like a salesman.